


best-laid plans

by bibliocratic



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (sort of), Angst and Tragedy, Body Horror, M/M, Web!Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29696745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliocratic/pseuds/bibliocratic
Summary: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 196Annabelle Cane goes with her first plan.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood / Jonathan Sims
Comments: 22
Kudos: 96





	best-laid plans

**Author's Note:**

> Again, HUGE spoilers for 196. 
> 
> There are content warnings, all detailed in the end notes

The tinnitus muddle of droning tape stuffs Jon’s ears cotton-packed, a persistent soreness like trapped water. His own voice – slivered shards detailing erratically the tale of his becoming, his words strung haughty and trembling and mulish and defenceless – plays in every room that he skitters into.

The recorders hang like hideous flies in the plush garlands of web, and Jon is lost in Hill Top Road.

His frenetic search narrows pin-hole as he sweats with the effort of not permitting his terror to cliff-drop into frenzy; _find Basira, find Martin,_ becomes a mantra of _get-out-get-help-get-someone,_ and the backing track to this is his own accusing voice, replaying every error he made both knowing and unknowing, every time he was not enough.

“Jon!”

“ _Basira.”_

She lurches into his vision from another room, her gun out, and he is not ashamed of how he grabs at her arm. Her face has lined itself tense, irritated by the machinations of this building, but she does not pull away.

“You alright?”

“I’ll get back to you on that one.” His joke comes strangled.

“Right. I don’t know _what_ this place’s bloody game is, but let’s not – ”

_Knock knock._

They both freeze.

_Knock knock._

“What was that?”

Jon’s words have shrivelled up in his throat, the intrusion a familiar nightmare he hoped he might be numb to.

_Knock knock._

“Who is it, Mr Spider?” he whispers.

“Jon?”

_Knock knock._

“Jon, what is it?”

“It’s polite to knock,” he repeats with the blank ease of recitation.

There is no door being struck. The walls of Hill Top Road whoop and quiver with the noise, hoarding the after-effect like the buzz of a tuning fork. There is only that knocking, there has only ever been.

Jon is the guest, finally come to dinner.

 _It’s the Archivist,_ he thinks wildly. _And he’s brought you his friends._

_Knock knock._

The room they are in appears as if it could have been a living room. Webbing obscures the wallpaper, the covering like the stringing of icicles, makes dustsheets over the furniture, smearing illegible the figures in the picture frames.

There are no doors that mark the thresholds from one room to another, not even the pocked ghosts of hinges where there might have been once, so when the figure in the doorway appears, they simply move into sight from behind the partition wall.

The knocking stops.

“ _Martin,_ ” Jon breathes out, a choked sob. He jerks forward, his relief catching like the click of a gas fire. “Thank god, Mart – ”

“Wait.”

Basira snatches his arm with a hiss as Martin moves into the room.

“Martin,” Jon says again, and it blurs between announcement and question.

“Yes,” Martin’s mouth shapes.  
“No.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “No.” “Yes.” “Yes.”

Jon’s relief dies on its back.

“Martin,” he says, strangled and punched out, simply for his body to have something to do.

“Jon,” Martin replies with a fond, treasuring look. Like he did in the tunnels even as he grumbled about the crick in his neck, the bad dreams that would return like the regrowth of weeds.  
“Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” “Jon.” 

Martin’s walk towards them lumbers, tottering. His face is smiling even as the skin of his cheek _ripples_ like disturbed water.

Jon’s mind is white noise – void – a breathless shriek of delirious refusal as Basira pulls them back.

“What the hell’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.” “Nothing.”

“Jon? Jon? What’s – what’s happened to him, who did this?”

“He did,” Martin’s mouth twitches in reply.

The chorus of voices chime in discordant, interrupting and overlapping, eager to feed into the mess of answers.

“He did.” “You did.” “Mother did.” “The Archivist did.” “Annabelle did.”   
“Mother did.” “He did.”  
“Came into our house – ” “Mother fed him promises – ” " - not lies, not exactly - "  
“ – he wanted so badly to believe them – ” “ – didn’t want to lose his first and only home to the Eye – ”  
“ – came in willingly – ”  
“Annabelle invited him in so cordially, and he crossed the threshold – ” “ – pretended he wasn’t terrified – ”  
“ – led him to the parlour – ”  
“ – the plan – ” “ – our plan – ” “ – Mother’s plan – ”  
“ – finally, _finally_ sprung – ”

“Stop that!” Basira snarls.  
  
The voices trickle off, droplets of – _house – plan – waiting patient –_ eventually drying up. Martin sways as he stands, like his legs are ill-used to holding up the weight of him. His fingers seize, flutter as the flesh over the tendons squirms. “Who’s talking?”

“We are.” “We are.” “We are.” “We are.” “We are.” “We are.”

Martin’s muscles jerk and spasm, for all his limbs strive for stillness. His dulled red-branched eyes, locked on Jon, bulge in their sockets as many small somethings push from behind them. His skin is puffy, strained and swollen like an over-stuffed bag. Raised bumps mark him like bruises, blisters of white with central pupils of red, giving him an uneven, discoloured cartography.

He won’t stop smiling and he won’t stop staring, and Jon’s heart is ground-up, ground-down, shattered.

Their last words had been made furious by desperation, and now there will be no more of them. The last memories Martin had of him, and they were callous, and hurtful, and wounding and they drove him to...

“What did you do to him?”

He knows, and Knows. Asks anyway.

“We followed Mother’s plan – ” “So long in the spinning – ”  
“ – nearly despoiled by the Lonely – ” " – tugged taut the embroidery of our webbing we’d so diligently sewn into him – ”  
“ – our prize, our home, our love – ” “ – ready for us to make our nests in – ”  
“ – when he felt the first of us begin to crawl – ”  
“ – burrow – ” “ – puncture – ” “ – nip – ” “ – bite – ”  
“ – tried to claw himself into the safe cloak of the fog – ” “ – our webs too tight – ” “ – ingrown – ”  
“ – we clambered over his tongue – ” “ – stuffed his throat with the mass of us – ”  
“ – screamed so loud Archivist – ” “ – didn’t – ” “ – couldn’t you hear him?”  
“ – he was sorry – ” “ – sorry – ” “ – sorry – ”  
“ – his regret belated and fever-spark – ”  
“ – so much of him to chew on – ” “ – chew up – ” “swallow down and gnaw – ”  
“ – Mother was patient and Annabelle was pleased while we feasted – ”  
“ – and he moaned and – ” “ – thrashed and – ”  
“ – didn’t have enough air left to cry out – ”  
“ – we showed him how much we knew we’d love him – ”  
“ – his flesh bloating us fat – ”  
“ – hollowed out and homely, stringing hammocks between his ribs – ”  
“ – all of us fit so snug and safe – ”  
“ – such a good fit, a perfect garment to wear – ”  
“ – perfect – ” “ – knew he would be – ” “ – would be – ” “ – would be – ”

Jon looks upon Martin’s bloated face. Knows how much he suffered before the End.

Jon’s grief sours as he witnesses the mockery made of him. The Eye’s gaze poisoned as it looks upon its favoured, its doted-upon beloved, seeing the rictus of a false smile as the Web wields its final, perfected puppet.

Jon’s fury is everything Annabelle Cane hoped it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings  
> \- body horror  
> \- mentioned eye trauma  
> \- corpses  
> \- asphyxiation / suffocation  
> \- emotional / mental manipulation


End file.
